


the improbability of perpetual motion

by carolinecrane



Category: No Ordinary Family
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-30
Updated: 2010-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinecrane/pseuds/carolinecrane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Powell's the superhero, and Katie's the sidekick.  But sidekicks are pretty important too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the improbability of perpetual motion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [normativejean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/normativejean/gifts).



> I wrote this before the most recent episode aired, so it's a tiny bit speculative for the rest of the season. I know no actual spoilers, so there are none included here.
> 
> With thanks to Rachel for the beta.

When Katie was a little girl, she was going to grow up to be a superhero. And not just any superhero, who got their superpowers through an accident of birth or the tragic death of really rich parents. She was going to be a smart superhero, like Professor X or Jean Grey or Kitty Pryde. She was going to be a scientist _and_ a crime fighter, saving the world with her brain and the judicious application of the laws of physics.

So Tony Stark got there ahead of her. He just set the precedent; she was perfectly capable of blazing her own trail. Plus, she could totally rock the cape and tights look.

Once she was old enough to figure out that superheroes didn’t actually exist, she still didn’t give up on her dream entirely. Just because she’d probably never have a direct line to the mayor’s office or an invisible jet didn’t mean she couldn’t use her brain to save mankind, after all, so she could still be...well, sort of a superhero.

That was what she told herself whenever the other girls in high school laughed at her for spending her weekends with the Academic Decathalon team or the Physics Club instead of hanging out at the mall flirting with boys. It wasn’t that she didn’t like boys; she just didn’t see why they always got to be the ones to do all the saving.

She met Kyle while she was in grad school and he was a newly minted FBI agent. There was something about the gun and the badge and the crisp suits that made him seem a little like a superhero, so she let him sweep her off her feet. It wasn’t until after she figured out that Kyle was more interested in the sound of his own voice than in helping her figure out how to save the world through a combination of scientific theory and dashing heroics that she remembered why she’d never hung out at the mall like the popular girls in high school.

It took awhile to stop beating herself up for selling out her own dream in the name of a pretty face and a shoulder holster, but once finals rolled around she was too busy trying to keep her brain from exploding to worry much about Kyle.

After Kyle there was Brandon, a sweet but kind of flaky Environmental Studies postdoc who talked a lot about saving the planet and wore sandals with socks all year round. Katie could overlook the fact that Brandon didn’t really have a plan to save enough money to pay his rent every month, let alone a plan to save the entire planet. She could deal with the fact that he was unfocused, because he was sweet and idealistic and he didn’t mind listening to her talk about her thesis.

She didn’t even mind all that much that the reason he was so laid back was because he was stoned ninety percent of the time. In the end, the thing about Brandon she couldn’t get past was the sandals.

After Brandon she decided to focus on school for awhile, and once she successfully defended her thesis and landed a job with Dr. Powell, guys like Kyle and Brandon seemed a little less important somehow. Suddenly they were distractions, because the work she was doing was important, and maybe she still wasn’t a superhero, but she was helping to save the world, so she was getting there.

She loved working for Dr. Powell, even on the days when she seemed distracted or abrupt or even downright sad. Katie liked to think of them as a totally kick-ass crime-fighting superteam, using their intelligence and all the resources at Global Tech’s disposal to make the world a little safer for mankind. Sure, she mostly spent her time in the background, and maybe sometimes it felt like Dr. Powell didn’t _know_ they were a crime-fighting superteam, but Katie knew, and that was enough.

Then Dr. Powell and her family almost died, but they didn’t, and when they came back from Brazil Katie knew right away something was different.

Well, okay, so she didn’t know _right_ away. Still, in retrospect she should have, because surviving a traumatic ordeal was a classic way to develop superpowers. Their story could have come right out of the pages of X-Men, you know, if X-Men were ever allowed to have families and normal alter egos instead of brooding a lot and living on the fringes of society, never getting thanks or credit for their heroic actions.

Not that Katie was bitter or anything.

But that kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in real life, so Katie figured it was okay that she didn’t guess right away. It was enough that Dr. Powell valued her input so much that she let Katie in on her secret, then she let Katie help research what was happening to her family. She _trusted_ Katie, and not just with blood samples and DNA analysis. She trusted Katie to tutor J.J., to help him use his powers to their full potential and keep from getting so bored in school he started to fail his classes again just for something to do.

Dr. Powell trusted Katie with her family, trusted her enough to let Daphne and J.J. talk to Katie about their problems. And Katie knew a little something about being a teenager and not exactly fitting in, so she could help with that. She could listen to their problems, things they couldn’t tell their parents. Almost like she was...well, not part of the family, but definitely part of the team.

Only that was the trouble, because spending time with Dr. Powell’s family reminded Katie of just what she’d given up to become a superhero. She’d given up a family of her own, great, smart kids like Daphne and J.J., even dating losers like Kyle and Brandon. And the thing was, she couldn’t even sit in her Fortress of Solitude and brood about how she’d given up her life for the good of humanity, because she wasn’t even the superhero.

Katie was the sidekick, like Pepper Potts and Robin and Alfred, working hard behind the scenes and giving up their lives to keep the superhero going. It was an important job. It was, and most of the time she really liked it, but every once in awhile she just wanted something for herself.

Will or Joshua or whatever his name really was sensed that about her, she knew that now. He could tell and he used it to get to her, and she let him, because he was cute and he was a great kisser and he said all the right things.

“Hey.” A shoulder bumped against Katie’s, dragging her out of the memory of Will’s blue eyes and the way he smiled, a little unsure, like maybe he was trying to figure out what she was doing with him. Another lie, Katie reminded herself, doing her best to shake off the memory and smile up at Dr. Powell. “No brooding, remember?”

Katie smiled a little more genuinely and reached out to take the glass of wine Dr. Powell -- Stephanie -- handed her. “Right. No brooding.”

Stephanie smiled and settled down next to her on the couch, reaching for the remote and her own glass of wine. A few seconds later Daphne sat down on Katie’s other side, setting a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and glancing between Katie and Stephanie for a second.

“Hey, where’s mine?”

“Nice try,” Stephanie said, grinning and raising her wine glass in Daphne’s direction, “but when I said we were having a girls’ night while your dad and J.J. went camping, I didn’t mean ‘girls gone wild’.”

Daphne rolled her eyes while Stephanie laughed and reached for a stack of DVDs on the coffee table. “So what are we watching first, ladies? _X-Men_ or _The Fantastic Four_?”

“ _X-Men_ , definitely,” Daphne answered, and Katie wasn’t about to argue, because she had a feeling they were only watching superhero movies on account of her, just like she knew Daphne was hanging out with her mom and Katie on a Friday night instead of spending time with her friends because her mom had bribed or threatened or guilted her into it.

And Katie remembered being a teenager, even though she’d never been all that typical, so she knew what a big sacrifice that was. They were trying to make her feel included, like a friend instead of just an employee.

Instead of a sidekick.

Stephanie stood up to put the movie in, then she let out a little gasp and looked back at them. “I can’t believe I almost forgot the brownies. I’ll be right back.”

Then she was gone, faster than Katie could blink, and she grinned and looked over at the kitchen to watch Stephanie cutting up brownies at lightning speed. “I _love_ it when she does that.”

Next to her Daphne snorted, and when Katie looked over at her Daphne smiled.

“You know, my dad’s been best friends with George since college. Next to me and my mom and J.J., my Dad loves George more than anybody else in the world.”

“I know,” Katie said, and she was smiling, but she knew she probably looked a little confused. “Your mom’s talked about how close they are. Sometimes it drives her a little crazy, I think.”

Daphne smiled back at her, but she was watching Katie as though she was waiting for something. “When we all got our powers, George started calling himself my dad’s sidekick. And he’s still one of the most important people in the world to my dad. Maybe even more now that my dad’s got super powers.”

It was funny how easy it was to forget what Daphne’s power was. It was easy to let her guard down around Daphne -- around all of them -- and that was probably Katie’s Kryptonite, like that new lip gloss Stephanie tried out turned out to be Jim’s.

So she was Stephanie’s sidekick, but she was her friend too, and that made Katie pretty important. After all, there were plenty of superheroes who couldn’t cope without a sidekick. Tony Stark probably wouldn’t be able to find his shoes without Pepper around, and everybody knows you can’t save the world barefoot.

Katie grinned and Daphne grinned right back at her, then she glanced over at the kitchen to make sure her mother was still busy building gigantic brownie sundaes before she turned back to Katie again.

“And my mom didn’t make me stay home tonight. We’re all stupid over some boy every once in awhile, right? I guess I just needed a break.”

Katie smiled and bumped her shoulder against Daphne’s, then she settled back on the couch again and took a sip of wine. “We all need a break sometimes.”


End file.
